Autobiographical

My full-length book, Where We Think It Should Go, can be yours via Octopus Books, Small Press Distribution, or Amazon. We better celebrate these hard copies while we can. When I'm not writing poetry, I teach amazing young people who are blind. I believe in a healthier future.

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

I have strongly encouraged some of my students to get guide horses. Guide horses wear shoes! But my students want guide dogs. You have to get a new guide dog about every seven years, but guide horses can live for forty years! They need fresh air. NY Times: Creature Comforts .

Thursday, December 25, 2008

“A paean of love” — he was writing to a girlfriendAmerican gangster movies and British war filmsNoise within silence

“Words are weapons that the characters use to discomfort or destroy each other” “Such as the man preferred coffee but the other person wished him to have tea"Written out of “very cold anger"

The adjective Pinteresque as a byword for strong and unspecified menace

RealistBetween “primitive rage” and “liberal generosity"All studies of the unreliability of memory and the uncertainty of love

“I don’t go away and say: ‘I have illuminated myself. You see before you a changed person,'"

For inexplicable reasons, invite a homeless man named Davies To share their quarters and to act as a kind of custodianPolitical maneuvering, fraternal love, spiritual isolation, language as a negotiating Weapon or a form of cover-up

A stage version of his film script for “Remembrance of Things Past”

“The play is a comedy because the whole state of affairs is absurd and inglorious. It is, however, as you know, a very serious piece of work.”

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 28th from 7-10:00pmthe Forum at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts701 Mission Street, San FranciscoFREE and ADA accessible to the publicCo-sponsored by Small Press Distribution and the Poetry Foundation

Friday, December 12, 2008

Get Local SF Mission Holiday Block Party Tonight

The really crazy thing is that a lot of places are giving discounts if you bring in your unemployment stub (see below). Wow! It's a new era (all the time). I will be looking to buy and resale your unemployment stubs, so please let me know if you have one to sell.

Do really long posts jam up your RSS feeds or whatever thing you use to follow blogs? I should start doing that, imposing order on my reading and ignoring habits.

-Claire

What: A celebratory evening of shopping, drinking and eating locally.Where: From 14th to 24th streets between Mission and Dolores.When: 6-10 p.m. Tonight

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Somehow for the first time, the list of Golden Globe nominations, the winter movie awards season, reminds me of a program I found on the ground for a high school play. The names, the things they do only exist in my imagination. I don't have any sensory or emotional connection. And I haven't cared much, but I have sometimes, and I've thought I had to see movies, wanted to make movies. But this year the only movies I've seen that appear in these lists are Milk, Wall-E, and Pineapple Express (James Franco was pretty good in that one--good catch Golden Globe people). I even forgot to see Batman.

The television list bores me too. True Blood is pretty good, and I like a few of those TV shows when I am incapable of doing other things (see Lydia Davis's "Television" for great thinking about television), but "Gossip Girl" really is the best show on TV partially because of how low and high it is at once. They even made reference to Fassbinder's "Berlin Alexanderplatz" (which put me in the theatre for some wonderful hours and a couple of short naps this year). And they should be recognized in some kind of list.

I used to watch a few movies a week but not this year. And it feels different this year. I'm not a part of things Hollywood! Draw me back in. Make me a part of things. I don't really care about these crappy intellectual movies. I'm more interested in those 15-year old Disney star's Myspace pages.

Saturday, December 6, 2008

I was tiredly doing research the other night for a post about bad websites, lame things on the internet that you might not know about. The first one is the Your Scene, Strange but True, Weird Warnings page on the L.A. Times website. Readers/viewers can post their own photos of weird signs.

After viewing all 359 posted photos, I conclude that there are 3 categories of weird/humorous signs. 1) Signs displaying poor English translations; 2) Signs with graphics that surprise the viewer, often found on trips to foreign countries; 3) Odd combination of circumstances causes a sign to be funny (ie. a falling rocks sign has fallen down, rocks all around it).

The website it poorly organized. The photos are small and hard to see. There are obessive users who have commented throughout the 359 posted weird warnings. Some users have accused others of photoshopping their weird warning signs. YOU could LITERALLY spend hours on the site! And I do not recommend that.

I'm reading Jane Goodall's autobiography to my students. I like how hairy baby chimps are except for their ears and faces.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Monday, November 17, 2008

Oakland band Why? are my current favorite poetical musicians. Their album Alopecia is what I've heard so far, many times, and it's so various, it reminds me of the Gris Gris, another great Oakland band who I guess have broken up. I think there is another band in this category in my mind. What was it Jenny?

Friday, November 14, 2008

Follow this link: http://www.hemlocktavern.com/prog_guide.php It might look like a program guide for the Hemlock Tavern, but think of it as a really cute collection of photographs and art. I like the photos taken of bands almost enough to start one. Maybe I'll start with the promotional materials. That sounds like a sweet weekend plan.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

I'm going to have a few poems in this exhibition printed in neat single-page books my sister designed. If you're in Los Angeles, check it out. If you're crying in Los Angeles, check it. If you're in Los Angeles on Thursday, be received.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

If you have a Blackberry, maybe an iPhone, maybe a Google phone, or some phone that is also the internet; if you need the news read to you by National Public Radio; if you have lots of extra phone minutes; if you ride public transportation, you are going to be really happy. You are going to be really happy because you are so much like me, except you have a lot of phone minutes.

Go to www.npr.org from your mobile device. Next to the stories, there's a button that says Call. Push it, and your phone asks if you want to call the number. Call the number and you can hear the radio stories, one by one. It's pretty sweet. That's what I was doing yesterday when the cops came onto the BART train and arrested someone in the seat across the aisle from me. I was glad I looked busy.

I also recommend using speaker phone or headphones so you don't hurt your brain like I do.

Hot off the Lame House presses, Franklin Bruno's new chapbook Policy Instrumentis now available for $8.00 postpaid. Policy Instrument is hand-bound and printed in a limited edition of 200 copies. Cover art by Dietmar Krumrey.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

I think the audio voter guide is useful to anyone who likes to listen to things that might be dense to read. Everything is read by a human. If you don't live in California, check your state's web resources for similar options.

You can access an audio version of the Official Voter Information Guide for the November 4th election on the California Secretary of State's website. There are two versions--the whole voter guide as a Zip file or individual sections of the voter guide as mp3 files accessed from the Table of Contents. For each Voter Proposition on the Ballot, there are separate files with the Official Title and Summary, Analysis by the Legislative Analyst, Arguments for and against, and Rebuttals.

Audio Version of the Official Voter Information Guide (separate files):http://www.voterguide.sos.ca.gov/audio/

The entire audio version of the VIG is available for download at http://www.voterguide.sos.ca.gov/audio/en-2008pg.zip

I'm not turning 30 yet, but as one of my students writes, "I don't mind what the future brings." Regarding a conversation we were having, my sister sent me the following. I like how Augustus is her favorite emperor.---This is the book I decided to read in preparation for turning 30.

Ovid: Metamorphoses

He was a Roman, but the stories are mostly from Ancient Greece. Also interesting: he was exiled by Augustus (my favorite emperor) for a terrible crime which was never revealed. The Metamorphoses is a very very long poem comprised of stories about characters transformed; Ovid had hoped it would redeem his reputation and enable him to return to Rome.

LCB says, "If I had my own geography of circles there would be four and they'd be Aesthete, Ascetic, Marxist and Hippie. Maybe I could replace Marxist and Hippie with Anarchist and have only three, which would look nicer (Overlap categories TBD)."

Send me more circles! Mine is coming soon.

Does anyone know how to make alt-tags for images work with blogger's crazy HTML?

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Some Pomona friends have commented on the McSweeney's site. I don't remember him well. I tried to take a contemporary fiction class with him his first year at Pomona, my last, but it filled up. I went to his office hours to try to get in. He told me I could sit in the interrogation chair or the tippy chair. I sat in one. The class didn't have room. That was fair. I worked in the English department office, library, etc. I ran into Wallace at night in Crookshank Hall. He would be using the office, putting things in mailboxes, taking things from mailboxes. He often wore shorts.

But it's not him I remember (or don't) as well I as I remember the experience of his brain on the page. I remember the companionship, talkiness, the hallways, the drone. I read Infinite Jest throughout a semester abroad in Madrid. I read it after lunches, after napping after lunches in my tiny floral room, after staring at canvases, after staying out 'til morning and waking in the afternoon, after reading L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E.

I don't know what to say. I'm trying not to delete my recollections. Read the books? Read DeLillo.

I thought saw a scene from White Noise today on the highway. The kind of rubbernecking where your head bends down.

I'm also thinking of you, English department, and I hope you are alright.

It's pledge drive time for my two local NPR stations, KQED (88.5 FM) and KALW (91.7 FM). This interruption—voices saying nothing instead of voices saying choreographed things—that I wake up to daily, almost drives me crazy, and combined with some other things like election anxiety and work-related stress, that's not good.

I have a beautiful dream involving silence. Instead of the pledge drive, they turn the radio stations off. And they tell us once maybe or mail us a postcard, fly a small plane with a banner, put a notice in the newspaper: no more of your local NPR station until we've collected enough money to run the station. Start sending money in now, and we will turn it back on when we have enough.

If that takes two weeks, that's normal. If it never comes back on because they don't receive enough money, they'll have to try a different strategy. I'll just keep checking those frequencies to see what's up. They could do a lot with empty frequencies.

The new iPod Nano finally has some built in accessibility features for the visually impaired. You can enlarge the font size, and you can operate the menus with your voice. However, there are only 2 settings for the font size, Standard & Large! I can't imagine that's sufficient. You can also now use iTunes 8 with a screen reader. Why did it take so long?! The baby boomers are going to demand accessibility all over the place as visual impairments start to set in, and that's going to be great.

I have students who use iPods. They just play them on shuffle and skip what they don't want to hear. I also have students using text messaging who guess what the messages say.

Anyway, people don't really use Macs in the blind community. My friend, a technology expert, hates them. I think there are a lot of holes in the way things work.

We tried using Google Chrome with Jaws, a very mainstream screen reader, yesterday, and we could not do a thing. Jaws only read the address bar and wouldn't tell us what was on the screen. Google Chrome also wasn't working with some standard keyboard commands, since it doesn't have a menu bar. I hope those things get worked out.

I keep meaning to check if this blog is even accessible. And now I remember it's not. I need alt tags on my images...I think that's what they are called.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Monday, September 8, 2008

I can't figure out which website they're using currently, but Books & Bookshelves, at 99 Sanchez Street in San Francisco, is selling tons of great small press poetry chapbooks, full length books, and journals as well as beautiful unfinished bookshelves and other furniture. If you're a small press, you should get in touch with them so they can carry your stuff. They also have a new reading series. If you want more information, I might be able to work a little to get some hard facts.

In other news, I got stuck with a broken down van, 5 students and 2 teachers for several hours today outside the Palace of the Legion of Honor art museum. Then I went straight to my 3 hour class on teaching math and made origami fish. Oh man. Human.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

That's a photo of the journal Satellite Telephone posing as a face. And the photo is backwards, and the mirror is what you get. Anyhow, it's a magazine put out by Robert Dewhurst. I have about 10 pages of stuff in there. There is a typo to correct. In the poem, "San Leandro," "I bought friends" should read "I brought friends." It's not me in the poems though, so I don't know. Maybe she did buy friends. Maybe I wrote that. Maybe I changed my mind. Is that why Typo is Typo? Also there's a little "stars" for "stairs" action which I wish we could do in real life.

"The magazine is xeroxed and staple-bound, with silkscreened covers. It costs $7, postage paid, and can be purchased below with paypal. Copies _may_ also be found in Portland at Reading Frenzy; in Los Angeles at FAMILY; in Washington, DC at Bridge Street Books; in Amsterdam at Boekie Woekie; and in Germany at the Cologne Kunstverein. Or, like the first issue, #2 is free as a trade for mail art or other zines. You should do this. Email the editor for his current address."

I'm back to work now as are many of you probably. It's kind of sad to have time go quickly, be back to work, feel the gulf from Saturday to Saturday. Because so much happened—you moved your body to and from a place so many times, but a little piece of garbage sat waiting to be thrown away, and it didn't get thrown away. And a whole week went by. And a sweater sat soaking to get a stain out. It sat for two weeks in the water, not disintegrating perceptibly.

It's exciting too, and maybe even though the job seems harder you're doing it a little better because one thing you learned to do last year comes easier. I'm sad and excited which manifests in exhaustion at the end of every day. My goals from last new year's are met (moving to city, riding bike), so the next four months I can use to file and mail things and update this blog when I'm not working. And drink less, be less social, reverse my previous new year's resolutions.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

I had up a very unflattering photo of a French horn, but I took it down because it didn't go with the very flattering landscape of my blog. In its place, here is my sister and me at Laura Ingalls Wilder's house. I used to play the French horn, and it was wild.

There's a lot of other stuff I've been meaning to put on here, like the Frank Stanford Literary Festival, some chapbooks I got in the mail, and Satellite Telephone magazine I got in the mail.

Lauren Levin's excitement about Link+ on the Mrs. Maybe's Seance Blog reminded me of the mystery of my stolen (and according to the library, paid for) graduate thesis. It was one of my first posts on this blog. I'm kind of glad because I don't have to steal it myself in the future. But really, who burned my thesis? You can search for it on Link+...

"In 1967, Conner ran for the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco. He described his business or occupation as 'Nothing. My qualifications for said office are as follows: The light of the body is the eye; therefore when thine eye is single, they whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is dark, they body is full of darkness. Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness. If thy whole body be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light. For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known.'

"One campaign speech was a list of desserts, reports the Bay Guardian. The artist/candidate received 5,228 votes."

I tried writing down every thought. I thought it would be a poem. It was fourteen pages long. I've got to work at the fourteen pages to find the poem—like finding order in the chaos in nature. Finding math. Figuring out ferns. But the poem might not be there. Or it has to be there somewhere, but I might not ever go in there to find it.

I've been trying all day to put words to a scary bleak dream. I was at a version of the house where I grew up. Everything in the yard was dead. My mom was gone, and my dad telling what I needed to know about the house before he left. He was standing in the yard watering the dead things with a hose. And sometimes my dad was not my dad. He was my friend who just moved away.

I'm supposed to spend more time alone and get things done, but is there something sad about getting done that you're meant to do? Balance. Only temporarily have I ever achieved that.

Do you think that you should get paid to do what you want to do, get money from the state and be a poet? Maybe we shouldn't all have to be teachers? My housemate thinks that if that's the case, then he should get paid to be a sailor. I say Yes. But he believes in work. They're both work. Poems can turn others into poets, and that's for the good of society. Can anyone prove this empirically with a longitudinal study?

What if we each spent all day on the basics instead of being extreme specialists? Healthwise, isn't that what they're saying we're supposed to do?

Friday, August 1, 2008

Available soon from Traffiker Press, the thing you see on the table: Jared Stanley's flapping open chapbook, The Outer Bay. It is sure to be an excellent read. To get it, you're going to have to send a check to Andrew Kenower probably.

On a side note, I am wondering if anyone has watched the cancelled HBO series created by David Milch, John From Cincinnati. It has many of the same actors and speaking styles and sometimes music as Deadwood. I recently finished it, after getting stuck in the middle for a while. It was alright, way better than many things.

Tonight maybe I'm going to see The Exiles, 1961, which looks awesome. And I'm now going to try to go swimming. Goodbye.

In a related note, Hasbro company is really stupid to attack Scrabulous. They're only making Scrabble more popular. Scrabble is the only trademarked board game with such a high level of popularity, according to the book Word Freak. It can't last! I personally have travel scrabble and a Braille version from the fifties or sixties. So how is my playing Scrabulous hurting Hasbro?

Copyright is stupid. Publishers also make is a lot harder than necessary for blind users to download the e-text of books, so they can be translated into Braille. I've read that people are starting to download textbooks illegally. Totally understandable. People like physical books and will never completely stop buying them. People who have enough money (or parents' money) to buy a $130 textbook will do it. I get mine from the sweet Link+ system at the library. Other people can read them on the computer screen.

By the way, I've been reading on the screen lately, and I have a really good suggestion: make your font way bigger and lean back in your chair. On a Mac, you just hit the Apple key with Plus.

Salt launches The Crashaw Prize for the publication of debut collections of poetry

CAMBRIDGE, UK (Salt Publishing) – The UK’s largest poetry publisher, Salt, has launched a new annual award for debut collections of poetry. The Crashaw Prize will be awarded to up to six new writers each year. Authors must reside in the UK or Ireland, the USA, or Australia and New Zealand. Winners of the Prize will be published simultaneously in the UK, USA and Australia each summer.

‘We want to continue to support new writing talent, but more than this, to draw attention to really first rate collections from poets both young and old,’ says director Chris Hamilton-Emery. ‘This prize isn’t about money, but about global publication in both hardback and paperback, and offering considerable publicity with one of the world’s leading poetry lists. We hope it will provide a platform for emerging writers to build their profile internationally and to look towards a long term relationship with Salt. We remain committed to breaking new talent, nurturing it, and finding readers for the best new writing.’

For more information visit http://www.saltpublishing.com/prizes/poetry/crashawprize.php

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

There are tons of readings coming up...uhhh. Are you on Facebook? Sometimes I wish I wasn't. That's the most dramatic thing I can say right now. The most! Summer school is kind of a drag. Teachers make bad students (or whatever). I'm a teenager in my afternoon house. Anyhow:

-I didn't make it to the last few, but I made it to quite a few. -Standing behind the reader on the balcony, staring at the wheelchair lift when the room was crowded. -Or in the proper places, staring at the Earth stickers on the chairs. -Awe at the excellent excellent roster of readers. -Looking at all the internet books in a real home on the shelf there. -I don't really like HiTek Burrito.

I am sure the Braille makes it sooo much easier to find! Braille Blank Notebook You know what would be even cooler? A HANDMADE Braille Blank notebook. Don't be fooled; this Braille was made by a machine.

Monday, June 9, 2008

I don't know if you're into Fecal Face, the art website, collective, gallery thing. But good old Josh was finally pictured on the labyrinthine website last week. Bronze @ Harrison Street Warehouse (5.31.08) You gotta scroll down for a while. He's not one of the main figures; he's behind an elbow sitting on the raised floor. It was a good party. Bronze is my new favorite live band. They're playing tonight at The Knockout.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Don't forget to vote if you can today. In San Francisco, crazy things to vote for (like ending rent control (statewide) and punishing moral turpitude). Vote unless you think I'm an idiot for wanting us to vote. I'm probably missing something. Your ideology is probably more developed than mine.

On the back of the Voter Information Pamphlet, it says my polling place is wheelchair accessible. Then it is stamped: "5% slope." So much about life here is determined by hills. I often regret living even on the edge of one. They made my polling place uphill.

They made the Regional Transit Discount ID card office in a place it could take hours to get to, with an entrance in the middle of a rocky, disintegrating parking lot with no sidewalks and hazardous tunnels entrances nearby. Right next to it is a polling place.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

ABOUT THE CONFERENCEWhile a triumphalist rhetoric of community and collectivity has frequently accompanied the narratives of alternative literary scenes and practices, the purpose of this conference is to instead explore the myriad ways in which consensus and community become challenged and/or untenable, and to produce fresh opportunities for rethinking poetic theory and practice.

SATURDAY, MAY 31please note: all Saturday panels will be at theCCA Oakland campus

11:00-12:30, Macky Hall, first floorThe Internet

2:00-3:30, Macky Hall, first floorCommunity Histories

3:45 - 4:00, Nahl HallViewing: SUPER-SOLID

4:00-5:30, Nahl HallAn Ethnic Avant-Garde?

7:30 PARTY AND READINGSReadings from Tyrone Williams and Bhanu Kapil. Hosted by David Buuck. Directions/map to David Buuck's house will be available at the conference, or email: smallpresstraffic@gmail.com

Sunday, May 25, 2008

I think I had a successful foot surgery on Thursday. They sliced from my big toe down past the first metatarsal joint. I have some screws holding bones together in two places. I should be able to get around by myself in the next couple of days--on crutches. My bandage won't come off for another week and a half. I won't wear real shoes for a month. My surgical shoe is navy & white.

So if you are looking for me, I'll probably in my house. I'll try to be reading and writing. I took some photos of my crooked foot. When my foot is all better, not painful, and straight, I can get my crooked foot tattoo. This would be a tiny drawing of my old crooked foot placed on my new straight foot. "Foot" is something. "Food" is something. "Good" is something. "Goot" is nothing.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Red Hook: December

We had not expected it, the whole streetLit with the red, blue, greenAnd yellow of the Christmas lightsIn the windows shining and blinkingInto distance down the cross streets.The children are almost awed in the streetPutting out the trash paperIn the winking light. A man worksPatiently in his overcoatWith the little bulbsBecause the window is openIn December. The bells ring,

Ring electronically the New YearAmong the roofsAnd one can be at peaceIn this city on a shoreFor the moment nowWith wealth, the shining wealth.

-Joe Massey reminded me about this Oppen poem called Red Hook. For you LCB.

Street Fair. We are having a street fair, with food, garage sales, and neighborhood comraderie. It's on Fair Oaks Street (between Delores and Guerrero). The street will be closed on from 21st to 26th streets, and we will be selling stuff. It's this Saturday, May 10th, from 9AM - 4PM (I think). If you know me and want to come over and sell stuff, let me know.

Have you heard the Charlotte Gainsbourg's album 5:55? It kind of reminds me of Histoire de Melody Nelson, her father Serge Gainsbourg's great concept album from 1971. I've also been really liking She & Him, Volume One with M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel. Her voice is really awesome. Sounds like old country sometimes, and I think some of them are covers, nice warm covers.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

1 draw canes with each kind of tip2 draw a slanted cane with all kinds of tips surrounding it3 at the top of the page will be the words CSB news flash last issue with the date4 put the little tips in a row in the middle of the page above that will be the heading5 beneath the cane tips will be the words last issue at the very bottom with the date

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Forty years ago, 1968. All those things in one year: student revolution in France, student revolution at Columbia University, assassinations, elections. And forty years later we have some student protests in California over state tuition fees, which go up significantly each year. But we might expect a lot more to be happening, just more happening.

Read this maybe: "Cinema, for Godard in the ’60s, was an art of the present tense, which meant that an individual film was not a framed and finished work but rather something more like an essay: provisional, disjunctive and almost by definition incomplete." I love that idea of an incomplete thing, an essay, a try. Doing that again and again. And protests and poems both might embody this model.

Possibly unrelate: you may have heard about this compendium of taco truck information on Morning Edition yesterday. It's pretty rad: Yum Tacos! One of the things I miss about Oakland is Fruitvale and taco trucks.

Monday, April 7, 2008

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Left Facing Bird , a journal made in six hours, yesterday in Montana and all over, featuring 100 writers, helping us write. This is a photo of my own left facing bird, friend of the pigeons watching me sleep.

To get to the moon you have to charge a Leo. Then you have to buy a fox. The last dog you need is a mountain. You will need that because you can't breathe in airport because there is no dirt. So don't forget to wear your mountain. Good luck beautiful